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Topanga Canyon Boulevard to reopen months ahead of schedule

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A road closure that cut off Topanga residents from their main route to the coast and forced long detours will reopen Sunday, months ahead of officials’ initial estimate.

Gov. Gavin Newsom is set to announce Friday the expedited reopening of a stretch of Topanga Canyon Boulevard that was shut down after a landslide March 9 smothered the roadway with dirt, rocks and a car-sized boulder. That month, storms battered the area, causing widespread damage.

“I cannot overstate just how important it has been for the state and everyone involved to see Topanga Canyon Boulevard open as quickly and as safely as possible,” Newsom said in a statement.

Also known as State Route 27, the roadway running from Pacific Coast Highway to the 118 Freeway is heavily traveled and scenic.

Nestled in the Santa Monica Mountains, Topanga Canyon Boulevard connects Malibu with the western San Fernando Valley, and serves as the primary artery for residents of Topanga to access PCH. Local businesses, isolated by the closure, have suffered. Meanwhile, residents have had to take alternative routes that can add hours to commute times.

An aerial view of the Topanga Canyon Road landslide

A landslide blocks Topanga Canyon Road on April 20.

(Caltrans District 7)

Residents’ frustration was “understandable,” said Lauren Wonder, a spokesperson for the California Department of Transportation. “It was a hardship for them to move around.”

Topanga Canyon Boulevard is also the evacuation route for Topanga Canyon, “making the reopening of this highway especially critical as fire season approaches,” Newsom’s office said in a news release.

Earlier this month, Newsom proclaimed a state of emergency to help secure federal funding to repair roads damaged by the fierce spring storms, including the two-lane highway.

Officials initially projected the closure between Grand View Drive and PCH would last until the fall.

It turned out, however, that there was less dirt, rocks and other material to remove than anticipated and the landslide wasn’t as deep as originally thought, according to Wonder.

Caltrans personnel couldn’t get to the slide area to make a more accurate estimate until the earth stopped moving, she said. The area remained unsafe for weeks.

Crews ultimately removed about 15,000 cubic yards of material — much less than the 50,000 to 90,000 they thought they would have to contend with, she said.

The type of slide that occurred is what’s known as translational, which Wonder described as “kind of like a tablecloth sliding off the table.” In other words, just the top layer of soil came down.

Once the slide came to a halt and visual assessments were made, an access road was built adjacent to the area, she said.

This allowed crews to get heavy equipment to the site and begin digging from the top down, she said.

It was still a sizable landslide, believed to be larger than another major one that occurred there in the 1940s, officials said.

According to the governor’s office, crews worked around the clock seven days a week to stabilize the area and clear the roadway.

“Thanks to the diligent efforts by the state along with crews assisting on the ground and the support of locals,” Newsom said, “this repair work has exceeded all our expectations by opening months ahead of initial estimates.”

A view of the Topanga Canyon Road landslide

The site of the Topanga Canyon Road landslide on May 20.

(Caltrans District 7)

On Sunday, both lanes of the road will open. There may be occasional one-way traffic control measures to complete additional repairs, officials said.

Wonder said crews might plant seeds or put cable mesh on the hill in an effort to prevent more material from coming down in that area.

“It is a constantly moving area, so we are doing our best,” Wonder said. “We are always monitoring so that we can preserve [and] protect the safety of motorists. Will this happen again? It could.”

A temporary traffic light installed on one-way Tuna Canyon Road at PCH — a detour route to the coast — will remain up for a while, she said.



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China’s BYD posts 21% jump in quarterly EV sales, closes gap with Tesla

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BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s BYD (BYDDY) posted a 21% rise in second-quarter electric vehicle sales, closing the gap with Tesla (TSLA) after handing back the world’s top EV vendor title to the U.S. rival in the first quarter.

BYD sold 426,039 EVs in the April-June quarter, according to Reuters’ calculations based on its monthly sales reports. That’s around 12,000 vehicles fewer than Tesla’s vehicle deliveries estimated for the second quarter.

FILE PHOTO: BYD and Autotorino store in MilanFILE PHOTO: BYD and Autotorino store in Milan

BYD and Autotorino store in Milan. (Reuters)

Tesla is expected to report a 6% drop in April-June quarter vehicle deliveries on Tuesday, the first time the U.S. firm is set to post two straight quarters of decline, as it deals with stiff competition in China and slow demand due to a lack of affordable new models.

The company may again cede its EV championship to BYD if the actual results turn out to be softer than estimated, with Barclays predicting an 11% drop in second-quarter deliveries, Tesla’s biggest ever.

Tesla has hit a speed bump after years of rapid growth that helped make it the world’s most valuable automaker. It warned in January that deliveries growth in 2024 would be “notably lower” as a boost from months-long price cuts wanes.

The EV maker has cut output of its best-selling Model Y electric car by a double-digit percentage number at its Shanghai plant since March to address weakening demand for its aged models in China, its second-largest market after the United States, Reuters reported in May.

By comparison, its top Chinese competitor BYD maintained steady growth in EV sales, while EV upstarts such as Nio reported stellar growth last quarter. NIO’s vehicle deliveries in the second quarter more than doubled to 57,300 units.

Price cuts and a growing shift in consumer demand to EVs and hybrids from gasoline-powered vehicles are the main reasons behind Chinese EV makers’ strong sales in recent months, said Cui Dongshu, secretary general, China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).

Sales of new energy vehicles including EVs and plug-in hybrids in China made up 46.7% of total car sales in May, a fresh monthly high, as per CPCA data.

(Reporting by Qiaoyi Li, Zhang Yan and Kevin Krolicki; Editing by Miyoung Kim and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)



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Biden slams SCOTUS presidential immunity ruling, ignores questions about dropping out

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President Biden slammed the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity in Trump v. United States, saying it means there are virtually no limits on what a president can do, in a speedy address Monday evening.

The president spoke for less than five minutes – four minutes and 40 seconds to be exact – before turning his back to the press and walking away. 

“This is a fundamentally new principle, and it’s a dangerous precedent, because the power of the office will no longer be constrained by the law, even including the Supreme Court of the United States,” Biden said.

The Supreme Court ruled that a former president has substantial immunity from prosecution for official acts committed while in office, but not for unofficial acts.

TRUMP IMMUNITY CASE: SUPREME COURT RULES EX-PRESIDENTS HAVE SUBSTANTIAL PROTECTION FROM PROSECUTION

Trump Biden debate collage

Trump and Biden squared off in their high-stakes 2024 election debate rematch last week.  (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images, left, )

In a 6-3 decision, the Court sent the matter back down to a lower court, as the justices did not apply the ruling to whether or not former President Trump is immune from prosecution regarding actions related to efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Biden continued his address, saying that the American people must decide whether Donald Trump’s assault on democracy on January 6th makes him “unfit” for public office and the highest office in the land.

“The American people must decide if Trump’s embrace of violence to preserve his power is acceptable. Perhaps most importantly, the American people must decide if they want to entrust the presidency to Donald Trump once again. Now knowing, he’ll be even more emboldened to do whatever he pleases, whenever he wants to do it,” Biden said.

Biden also spoke about the character of the nation’s first president, George Washington, and how he believed power was limited, not absolute.

Biden wrapped his speech and dodged questions from reporters as he left abruptly. 

Reporters shouted questions at Biden, asking him if he plans to drop out of the presidential race following his debate with Trump. 

TRUMP TOUTS SUPREME COURT’S PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY RULING AS ‘BIG WIN FOR OUR CONSTITUTION AND FOR DEMOCRACY’

Biden uses teleprompter

US President Joe Biden speaks during a Memorial Day address at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, US, on Monday, May 27, 2024.  (Bonnie Cash/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Biden has not taken questions from the press and has used teleprompters at his events, including a fundraiser in the Hamptons, following his disastrous debate performance against Trump last week.

“Today’s Historic Decision by the Supreme Court should end all of Crooked Joe Biden’s Witch Hunts against me, including the New York Hoaxes – The Manhattan SCAM cooked up by Soros backed D.A., Alvin Bragg, Racist New York Attorney General Tish James’ shameless ATTACK on the amazing business that I have built, and the FAKE Bergdorf’s “case.” PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!,” Trump wrote in a post on his social media site Truth Social. 

BIDEN CAMP DISMISSES TRUMP IMMUNITY RULING: ‘DOESN’T CHANGE THE FACTS’

Former President Donald Trump

Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges and argued he should be immune from prosecution from official acts done as president of the U.S.  (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

The former president was charged in August 2023 by Special Counsel Jack Smith with conspiring to overturn the results of his election loss to President Biden in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. 

Trump has denied doing anything wrong and has said this prosecution and three others are politically motivated to try to keep him from returning to the White House.

Trump shared his reaction to the Supreme Court’s ruling on his presidential immunity case, saying it’s a “big win for our constitution and democracy,” according to his Truth Social page. 

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“THE SUPREME COURT DECISION IS A MUCH MORE POWERFUL ONE THAN SOME HAD EXPECTED IT TO BE. IT IS BRILLIANTLY WRITTEN AND WISE, AND CLEARS THE STENCH FROM THE BIDEN TRIALS AND HOAXES, ALL OF THEM, THAT HAVE BEEN USED AS AN UNFAIR ATTACK ON CROOKED JOE BIDEN’S POLITICAL OPPONENT, ME. MANY OF THESE FAKE CASES WILL NOW DISAPPEAR, OR WITHER INTO OBSCURITY. GOD BLESS AMERICA!” Trump posted. 

Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman and Brianna Herlihy contributed to this report.



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Hurricane Beryl Flattens Grenada’s Carriacou Island

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Officials in Barbados said on Monday that the island had been spared the worst of Beryl.

The prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, told a nationwide broadcast from the island’s emergency operations center that as many as 20 fishing boats, including two popular cruisers, had possibly sunk. Still, she added, “This could have been far worse for us.”

Roughly 40 homes were known to have sustained roof or structural damage so far, she said, though that number was expected to rise as more than 400 residents returned home from shelters.

On St. Lucia, storm surge caused significant damage to fishing vessels, sinking at least 20 boats, according to initial reports. Dozens of homes were also damaged.

People across the eastern Caribbean had started preparing for the storm over the weekend, including those doing some last-minute shopping for supplies.

“Hurricanes are not something that we take lightly at home as a family,” said Fleur Mathurin, who lives on St. Lucia, where some parts of the island were experiencing power outages. “Having my family, my grandmothers, great-grands, gone through Hurricane Allen and Gilbert, this is something that they always preach to us.”

As of Monday afternoon, the storm was expected to continue tearing its way through the Caribbean, reaching Jamaica with potential hurricane conditions by Wednesday according to the National Hurricane Center.

Julius Gittens contributed reporting from Christ Church, Barbados; Linda Straker from Gouyave, Grenada; Kenton X. Chance from Kingstown, St. Vincent; Sharefil Gaillard from Gros Islet, St. Lucia; and Maria Abi-Habib from Mexico City.



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