World News
Republicans say crime is rampant, call immigration a threat during RNC
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Former President Trump’s top rivals in the Republican Party lined up behind the 2024 nominee on Tuesday, promising he would “make America safe again” from violent criminals and dangerous undocumented immigrants who they suggested are invading the nation via an “open” southern border.
After questioning his abilities and integrity during the primaries, they gave full-throated backing to a man they once loudly reviled, saying that unifying behind their former foe was crucial for the nation’s future. Trump, who entered the convention hall to thunderous applause, looked on approvingly as his former opponents urged voters to return him to the White House.
“For more than a year, I said a vote for Joe Biden is a vote for President Kamala Harris,” said Trump’s former ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley. “After seeing the debate, everyone knows it’s true. If we have four more years of Biden or a single day of Harris, our country will be badly worse off. For the sake of our nation, we have to go with Donald Trump.”
But Haley said her message was aimed at voters who may have qualms about the former president.
![Former Ambassador Nikki Haley.](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/a63e6a9/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3477x2391+0+0/resize/1200x825!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F35%2Fd2%2F1643105e42f2abafc11763870646%2F1467074-na-0716-rnc-rcg176.jpg)
Former Ambassador Nikki Haley speaks during the Republican National Convention on Tuesday.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
“We should acknowledge there are some Americans who don’t agree with Donald Trump 100% of the time. I happen to know some,” said Haley, whom Trump nicknamed “Birdbrain” during their 2024 primary contest. “My message to them is simple. You don’t have to agree with Trump 100% of the time to vote for him. Take it from me, I haven’t always agreed with President Trump, but we agree more often than we disagree.”
Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, entered the Milwaukee arena shortly before speeches by Haley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whom he bested in a testy 2024 GOP primary, and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, one of his opponents in the 2016 election.
“Let’s send Joe Biden back to his basement and let’s send Donald Trump back to the White House,” said DeSantis, whom Trump nicknamed “Ron DeSanctimonious.” “Our border was safer under the Trump administration and our country was respected when Donald Trump was our commander in chief. Joe Biden has failed this nation.”
![Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/d4dc8fa/2147483647/strip/true/crop/6000x4000+0+0/resize/1200x800!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F81%2Faf%2F1f12ddf04599889113e56ce48847%2F1467074-na-0716-rnc-rcg185.jpg)
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during the Republican National Convention on Tuesday.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Haley and DeSantis apparently learned a lesson from Cruz — aka “Lyin’ Ted” — whose failure to endorse Trump after losing to him in the 2016 GOP primary earned him boos at that year’s convention and some enmity from Trump loyalists. He has since fallen back in line with the man who suggested his father was potentially involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
The praise of Trump was interspersed with speeches about crime and immigration, and some of the most moving and powerful moments of the night came from families of crime victims.
On Tuesday, Cruz listed the names of Americans allegedly killed by people who are in the country illegally, including Kathryn Steinle, a 32-year-old woman who was shot in 2015 while strolling with her father on the Embarcadero in San Francisco.
“As a result of Joe Biden’s presidency, your family is less safe. Your children are less safe. The country is less safe. But here’s the good news: We can fix it. And when Donald Trump is president, we will fix it,” Cruz said. “We know this because he’s done it before.”
Tuesday night’s convention theme was “Make America Safe Again.”
Speaker after speaker, from politicians to law enforcement officials to people labeled “everyday Americans,” blamed crime in the U.S. in part on an “invasion” of criminals crossing into the country from the southern border with Mexico — though studies for years have shown immigrants are less likely to commit crimes here than natural-born U.S. citizens.
Kari Lake, a prominent 2020 election denier who lost a 2022 bid to become Arizona governor and is now running for the U.S. Senate, blamed “disastrous” Democratic policies for the surge in fentanyl and other opioid deaths in the country and along the southern border — which she said Trump would end.
![Kari Lake.](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/4b57a5c/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3414x2309+0+0/resize/1200x812!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F6e%2F94%2Fa10f343f41f2bc08ed9c89a6bebd%2F1467069-la-pol-rnc-jja149.jpg)
Kari Lake speaks at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Lake said President Biden and Democrats “have handed over control of my state, Arizona’s border, to the drug cartels,” and that “because of them, criminals and deadly drugs are pouring in and our children are dying.”
Anne Fundner, a mother from California, said her 15-year-old son, Weston, died from fentanyl in 2022 — which she blamed on the “open border” policies of Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“This was not an overdose, it was a poisoning. His whole future, everything we ever wanted for him, was ripped away in an instant — and Joe Biden does nothing,” Fundner said.
She said Trump must be elected to help end fentanyl’s scourge on American families like hers. “This fight is not for me. My son is gone,” she said. “This fight is for your children.”
Crime and homelessness are perennial campaign talking points among Republicans, often couched as the result of liberal policies in states such as California.
Republicans claim the title of the “law and order” party, which has been a particularly useful point of political redirection for Trump as he has faced multiple criminal investigations and been convicted of dozens of felonies in recent years.
Democrats dismiss the Republican criticisms as inaccurate or overblown. Cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco do struggle with crime and homelessness issues, Democrats say, but not to the extent Republicans suggest — and cities in red states struggle with similar issues.
Democrats also blasted Republicans for platforming individuals at the RNC who were involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and siege on the U.S. Capitol.
![Donald Trump leaves the Republican National Convention.](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/90070b9/2147483647/strip/true/crop/6000x4000+0+0/resize/1200x800!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Ffe%2Fcc%2F2811c1e345159e98eb594f6a418f%2F1467074-na-0716-rnc-rcg203.jpg)
Presidential candidate Donald Trump leaves the Republican National Convention on Tuesday.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Officer Michael Fanone, a Capitol Police officer who was injured in that attack, condemned the presence of insurrectionists at the convention.
“What happened on January 6th almost cost me my life and brought our democracy to the brink,” Fanone said in a statement. “This is a moment to come together and oppose those who call for violence in politics, but the RNC’s decision to give a platform to the same people who rioted against our democracy on January 6th does the opposite.”
Crime data vary across the country and within individual states.
However, the clearest trend in crime data in recent years nationwide, experts said, is that violent crime is down. Republicans often dismiss such data by saying they are fabricated or the result of lower reporting rates.
World News
Missing California mother found dead near hiking trail after partner threatened 3-year-old daughter: police
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A missing mother in Northern California was found dead near a hiking trail in the mountains on Sunday, hours after authorities say the woman’s partner threatened their 3-year-old daughter with a knife and charged at a police officer.
The body of Lizbeth Arceo Sedano, 25, was found around 9:40 a.m. near Eureka Canyon Road and Grizzly Flat Road in the Santa Cruz Mountains, the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office said.
Deputies responded to the call and investigators determined the body belonged to the 25-year-old mother, who had been reported missing in Watsonville a day earlier.
Sedano’s family reported her missing after the mother’s partner, Joshua Gonzalez, called the Watsonville Police Department from outside the police station at around 9:20 p.m. Saturday and threatened to harm their 3-year-old daughter, the department said.
IDAHO 5-YEAR-OLD FOUND DEAD AFTER WANDERING AWAY FROM HIS BIRTHDAY PARTY: POLICE
![hiking trail where Sedano's body was found](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/08/1200/675/body-found-santa-cruz-hiking-trail.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Sedano’s body was found around 9:40 a.m. Sunday near Eureka Canyon Road and Grizzly Flat Road in the Santa Cruz Mountains. (Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office)
A responding officer exited his patrol car and ordered Gonzalez to drop the knife. Gonzalez ignored the officer’s command, according to police, and instead charged toward the officer.
![Lizbeth Arceo Sedano](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/08/1200/675/Lizbeth-Arceo-Sedano.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
The death of 25-year-old Lizbeth Arceo Sedano is being investigated as suspicious, the sheriff’s office said. (Watsonville Police Department)
The officer then opened fire on Gonzalez, who was injured and taken to an out-of-county trauma center, where he is in stable condition, police said.
![Joshua Gonzalez](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/08/1200/675/Joshua-Gonzalez.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Sedano’s partner, Joshua Gonzalez, was taken into custody after threatening to harm their 3-year-old daughter with a knife and charging at a police officer, mere hours before Sedano’s body was found, authorities said. (Watsonville Police Department)
The three-year-old child was unharmed and was under the care of family members.
TEXAS FAMILY MISSING ON ALASKA VACATION AFTER BOAT CAPSIZES OFF COAST
The sheriff’s office said Sedano’s death “is being investigated as suspicious.”
“Cause and manner will be determined by our Forensic Pathologist and detectives will continue to investigate this case,” the sheriff’s office said.
World News
Government concerned by immigration lawyer ‘hitlist’
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The government says social media platforms “clearly need to do far more” after it emerged a list purporting to contain the names and addresses of immigration lawyers was being spread online.
Initially shared on the Telegram messaging app – along with the phrase “no more immigration” – it has now begun appearing on other platforms.
Lawyers have told the BBC they have been advised by police to work from home, board up office windows and install fireproof letterboxes.
Jim McMahon, minister for Housing, Communities and Local Government, told the Today programme, on BBC Radio 4, that he was “concerned”.
The Law Society of England and Wales said it was treating the list as a “very credible threat” to its members.
“This week has been a stark reminder that the anti-lawyer rhetoric has very real-world consequences for solicitors working tirelessly for their clients, access to justice and the rule of law,” said its president Nick Emmerson.
“We don’t know if they will transpire to be protests like we’ve seen in other places or whether it’s a list that’s intended just to cause alarm and distress or even to provoke,” Mr McMahon said.
“But to be clear we are absolutely prepared in terms of our policing response, in terms of our prosecutor response, and also in terms of our court response.”
The BBC has approached Telegram for comment on the spreading of the list – it is yet to respond.
However, in a previous statement about the unrest it said its moderators were “actively monitoring the situation and are removing channels and posts containing calls to violence.”
It said such “calls to violence” were explicitly forbidden in its terms of service.
Mr McMahon warned people could “expect the full force of the law” if they “cross the line”, whether it is “on the street or online”.
The Telegram group was created just hours after the killing of three children at a holiday club in Southport, on Merseyside, on 29 July.
That triggered waves of unrest in England and Northern Ireland, partly fuelled by far-right activists and online misinformation.
One immigration lawyer on the list told the BBC she had been repeatedly threatened, and received messages on Monday telling her she was “on a hitlist”.
Mr McMahon would not be drawn on whether Telegram could be told to remove channels where the list is being spread, or whether the messaging app could be blocked altogether.
He said it was important that police and prosecutors were able to do their jobs “without any political interference”.
Mark Webster, the chief constable of Cleveland Police, told Today people should be “very careful” about “naming individual premises or saying what we’re doing individually in forces”.
“You will see an awful lot of resource today and over the following days to make sure we can manage responses to all of the intelligence that comes in,” he said.
He urged people to focus on official communications online, and not to “react to things on social media from sources you can’t verify”.
World News
California earthquake: Magnitude 5.2 quake rattles SoCal
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A magnitude 5.2 earthquake, centered about 18 miles southwest of Bakersfield, was felt across a wide swath of Southern California on Tuesday night.
The earthquake, originally estimated at magnitude 5.3, struck at 9:09 p.m., according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was followed by dozens of aftershocks of magnitude 2.5 and up, including a magnitude 4.5 earthquake that occurred less than a minute after the first, and a magnitude 4.1 temblor at 9:17 p.m.
The epicenter was in sparsely populated farmland, about 14 miles northwest of the unincorporated community of Grapevine in Kern County, 60 miles northwest of Santa Clarita, and about 88 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.
Two minutes after the earthquake hit, a large boulder — the size of an SUV — was reported blocking multiple southbound lanes of Interstate 5, about a mile south of Grapevine Road, the California Highway Patrol said. The boulder was still blocking lanes of traffic at least an hour after the earthquake.
The area closest to the epicenter felt “very strong” shaking as defined by the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale; that zone includes a section of the California Aqueduct, which transports water from Northern California to Southern California.
By the time shaking was felt in more populated areas, including Bakersfield, Santa Clarita and Ventura, the USGS calculated that only “weak” shaking was felt, which can rock standing cars and cause vibrations in a building similar to the passing of a truck.
Some residents affected by the quake reported an extended period of shaking. One person in Los Feliz felt 45 seconds of movement, with at least three different waves — one weak, followed by a strong one, then again a weak one. In South Pasadena and Whittier, people felt about 20 seconds of shaking, contained in two distinctive waves.
In Pasadena, seismologist Lucy Jones said she felt about three seconds of shaking.
There were no immediate reports of damage. And not everyone felt the earthquake. L.A. County Sheriff’s Deputy Jose Gomez said he didn’t feel the shaking during his drive into work at the sheriff’s Santa Clarita station. No damage was reported there.
The Los Angeles Fire Department said no significant damage was reported within city limits.
The USGS said the quake was felt across the Los Angeles Basin and inland valleys and in Santa Maria, Bakersfield and Fresno.
Many Southern California residents described getting alerts from the USGS’ earthquake early warning system, such as through the MyShake app or on their Android phones. (The earthquake early warning system is automatically installed on Android phones, but people with Apple iOS phones need to install the MyShake app to get the most timely alerts.)
One person described getting 30 to 45 seconds of warning before feeling the shaking arrive. Another person, in east Anaheim, reported 30 seconds of warning before shaking arrived.
Jones, a research associate at Caltech, said the duration of shaking can vary so much in the L.A. area because the length of time the earth moves at any given spot can depend on the soil and rocks beneath the location, whether a person is sitting still or moving around, and even whether an individual is on the ground floor or on top of a skyscraper — those on higher floors feel the shaking more strongly.
The reason some people may have felt more than one wave of shaking is that the first aftershock occurred so soon — less than a minute — after the main shock, Jones said.
Geophysics professor Allen Husker, head of the Southern California Seismic Network at Caltech, said it wasn’t surprising that so many people in the L.A. area felt significant shaking from a magnitude 5.2 earthquake north of the Grapevine. The temblor occurred at night, when people are resting and more likely to feel shaking from a distant quake than if they were out and about during the day and active.
Another reason many people felt substantial movement is due to the way shaking is amplified in the Los Angeles Basin. The basin is a 6-mile-deep, bathtub-shaped hole in the underlying bedrock filled with weak sand and gravel eroded from the mountains and forming the flat land where millions of people live. It stretches from Beverly Hills through southeast L.A. County and into northern Orange County.
“The basin effect … increases the shaking that you would otherwise normally have,” Husker said.
The effect happens when waves from the shaking arrive and hit the walls of the basin, then bounce back at the walls of the basin, Jones said, resulting in an “extended duration.”
A major earthquake on the San Andreas fault would result in perhaps 50 seconds of strong shaking in downtown L.A. “This earthquake was much, much smaller, of course,” Jones said, “but it was large enough to set up some of these basin effects and get things bouncing around.”
As with all earthquakes, there was a 1 in 20 chance that Tuesday’s temblor was a foreshock to a larger earthquake. The risk that a follow-up quake will be larger diminishes over time.
In the last 10 days, there had been no earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater centered nearby.
An average of five earthquakes with magnitudes of 5.0 to 6.0 occur per year in California and Nevada, according to a recent three-year data sample.
Tuesday’s earthquake occurred about 12 miles northwest of the epicenter of the magnitude 7.5 Kern County earthquake that struck on July 21, 1952. That earthquake resulted in 12 deaths, and, according to the USGS, old and poorly built masonry buildings suffered damage. Some of those structures collapsed in communities including Tehachapi, Bakersfield and Arvin; heavy damage was reported at Kern County General Hospital.
Shaking from the 1952 earthquake was felt as far away as San Francisco and Las Vegas, and caused nonstructural but extensive damage to tall buildings in the Los Angeles area and damage to at least one building in San Diego, according to the USGS.
The 1952 earthquake occurred on the White Wolf fault. Tuesday’s earthquake wasn’t associated with any previously mapped faults.
The earthquake occurred at a depth of 5.6 miles. Did you feel this earthquake? Consider reporting what you felt to the USGS.
Find out what to do before, and during, an earthquake near you by signing up for our Unshaken newsletter, which breaks down emergency preparedness into bite-sized steps over six weeks. Learn more about earthquake kits, which apps you need, Lucy Jones’ most important advice and more at latimes.com/Unshaken.
The first version of this story was automatically generated by Quakebot, a computer application that monitors the latest earthquakes detected by the USGS. A Times editor reviewed the post before it was published. If you’re interested in learning more about the system, visit our list of frequently asked questions.
Times staff writers Jon Healey, Ian James, Jason Neubert, Sandra McDonald and Raul Roa contributed to this report.
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