California fires weather forecast: Fire danger expected to increase as winds pick up
KABC
(LOS ANGELES) — There has been a reprieve from the strongest winds in Southern California over the past 24 hours, but winds are expected to pick up later Saturday into the night, raising the fire danger yet again.
The fire outlook for Saturday is back at the “Critical” level for much of southern California as dry, gusty winds fan the flames.
Wind alerts, including a High Wind Warning, are in effect for much of the Los Angeles area as this next round of Santa Ana winds arrive.
Northeast winds of 30 to 40 mph are expected by Saturday night with gusts up to 65 mph.
Another major wind event is expected between Monday night and Wednesday, which may lead to rapid fire spread yet again.
Smoke has also lead to significantly reduced air quality all across the Los Angeles area and there won’t be any major improvements until these fires subside.
Southern California is not out of the woods yet when it comes to fire danger.
At least 11 people have been killed by the devastating wildfires. The two biggest are the Palisades Fire, which has decimated the coastal community of the Pacific Palisades, and the Eaton Fire, which has scorched home after home in Altadena.
As of Saturday morning, the Palisades fire, at 21,596 acres, was 11% contained and the Eaton fire, at 14,117 acres, was 15% contained, according to Cal Fire.
(NEW YORK) — Trump administration border czar Tom Homan recently promised to carry out “big raids” in sanctuary cities across the U.S. — and scenes of immigration authorities detaining migrants Thursday have rattled some residents in cities like Newark, Boston and New York City.
However, sources told ABC News the enforcement operations this week since President Donald Trump’s second inauguration are the type of routine immigration raids that have been customary of ICE for years.
In a post on X, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the agency had made a total of 538 arrests Thursday.
Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka said in a statement on Thursday that ICE “raided” a business in the city and detained “undocumented residents, as well as citizens, without producing a warrant.”
In a press release, the mayor said one of the detainees was a veteran “who suffered the indignity of having the legitimacy of his military documentation questioned.”
“This egregious act is in plain violation of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees ‘the right of the people be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,” the mayor said. “Newark will not stand by idly while people are being unlawfully terrorized. I will be holding a press conference in alliance with partners ready and willing to defend and protect civil and human rights. Details to come.”
WABC also reported ICE made arrests in New York, including of an alleged MS-13 member on Wednesday.
In Massachusetts, WCVB reported ICE made arrests in Chelsea and East Boston on Wednesday.
Gov. Maura Healey said she supported the arrests of criminals regardless of their immigration status.
“I wouldn’t describe them as raids,” Healey told WCVB regarding the arrests.”What it seems to be, and what we expected and what I support, which is the apprehension of criminals in our communities.”
(NEW YORK) — A New York appeals judge has denied President-elect Donald Trump’s request to delay the Jan. 10 sentencing in his criminal hush money case.
Trump’s sentencing will proceed as planned on Friday, pending potential additional legal maneuvers by the president-elect’s lawyers.
Judge Ellen Gesmer rejected Trump’s claim that the case should be delayed because of presidential immunity, after his attorney argued before the court that Trump is covered by presidential immunity that extends to him while he waits to be sworn in.
The appellate court heard arguments Tuesday in Trump’s lawsuit against the judge in the case, Juan Merchan, and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, as part of Trump’s effort to halt his sentencing following his criminal conviction in May.
“We should get a stay so that no further action happens,” defense attorney Todd Blanche said during oral arguments at the Appellate Division’s First Judicial Department. “The imposition is extraordinary.”
Judge Ellen Gesmer questioned whether immunity granted to sitting presidents extends to presidents-elect.
“I’m curious about that,” she said. “Do you have any support for a notion that presidential immunity extends to Presidents-elect?”
Blanche replied that he did not. “There has never been a case like this before, so no,” Blanche said.
Prosecutors said there is no evidence “whatsoever” to back the claim that presidential immunity applies to Trump prior to his inauguration on Jan. 20.
“The claim is so baseless that there is no support for an automatic stay here,” said Steven Wu of the Manhattan district attorney’s office. “There is a compelling public interest in seeing this process come to an end.”
The prosecutor noted that Trump’s sentencing was originally scheduled for July 11 and every delay since has been done at Trump’s request.
“If sentencing is to happen at all, now is the best time for it to happen,” Wu said.
Trump was found guilty in May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in order to boost his electoral prospects in the 2016 presidential election.
Merchan initially scheduled Trump’s sentencing for July 11 before pushing it back in order to weigh if Trump’s conviction was impacted by the Supreme Court’s July ruling prohibiting the prosecution of a president for official acts undertaken while in office. Merchan subsequently ruled that Trump’s conviction related “entirely to unofficial conduct” and “poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the Executive Branch.”
Trump’s lawyers asked the appeals court to stop the proceedings — including his Jan. 10 sentencing — and to dismiss his conviction outright based on presidential immunity grounds.
“Justice Merchan’s erroneous decisions threaten the institution of the Presidency and run squarely against established precedent disallowing any criminal process against a President-Elect, as well as prohibiting the use of evidence of a President’s official acts against him in a criminal proceeding,” they argued in their suit.
Blanche and fellow defense lawyer Emil Bove, both of whom Trump has picked for top Justice Department posts in his incoming administration, claimed in the suit that Trump’s “undisputed absolute immunity” extends to his time as president-elect — an argument that Judge Merchan roundly denied last week.
The lawyers also claimed that the jury’s verdict was “erroneous” because they saw evidence related to official acts.
“President Trump brings this Article 78 proceeding to redress the serious and continuing infringement on his Presidential immunity from criminal process that he holds as the 45th and soon-to-be 47th President of the United States of America,” the filing said.
The president-elected faces up to four years in prison, but Merchan last week indicated that he would sentence Trump to an unconditional discharge — effectively a blemish on Trump’s record, without prison, fines or probation — saying that would strike a balance between the duties of president and the sanctity of the jury’s verdict.
Merchan on Monday denied a separate request by Trump to halt the sentencing in the case.
Paul Bersebach/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images
(LOS ANGELES) — Ippei Mizuhara, the former interpreter for MLB star Shohei Ohtani, is set to be sentenced Thursday on federal charges related to stealing nearly $17 million from the Dodgers player, nearly a year after the gambling controversy first surfaced.
Mizuhara, 40, admitted to fraudulently transferring the money from Ohtani’s account for more than two years to pay his gambling debts, including impersonating the athlete on two dozen occasions in calls to the bank, according to a plea agreement in the case.
Prosecutors called the scheme “deep” and “extensive” fraud and that Ohtani was “harmed substantially” by Mizuhara’s actions.
Mizuhara pleaded guilty last year to one count of bank fraud, which carries a maximum of 30 years in prison, and one count of subscribing to a false tax return, which carries up to three years in prison. A sentence of 48 months was recommended by the probation officer.
Mizuhara, a permanent resident of the U.S., also faces a risk of deportation back to his native Japan upon completion of the federal sentence, prosecutors said.
Mizuhara asks judge for mercy
In a three-page letter to Judge John Holcomb filed ahead of Thursday’s hearing, Mizuhara asked for a “merciful and not punitive” sentence and set out to explain why he committed the fraud.
He described mounting financial stresses that he said led him to use an online sports betting website run by Mathew Bowyer starting in 2021. He said that due to his “ignorance to the gambling industry,” he did not realize it was an illegal gambling business until early 2024.
“Being desperate for money at the time, I stupidly thought this might be an opportunity to help myself out financially and started to use his website for sports betting. And before I knew it, the results were the complete opposite,” Mizuhara wrote. “My gambling debt had grown so much that I could not find any way to pay it but to use Shohei’s money … I felt terribly guilty about putting my hands on his money but this was the only solution I could think of at the time.”
Mizuhara also said that the offseason was “physically and mentally” harder while detailing some of his errands for Ohtani, such as driving him to trainings, taking his dog to the vet and fixing his bicycle — saying he had “almost no true days off.”
“I felt like I was getting severely underpaid but I was afraid to speak up for myself as I was on a one year contract every year and I didn’t want to upset them and end up getting fired,” he wrote.
Mizuhara said he hopes to use his experience to help others dealing with gambling problems. He also outlined the impact a prison sentence would have on his wife.
“I understand that I have made a decision that will impact my entire life and I am not making excuses for what I have done. I am not trying to justify my actions in any way. I am asking that you will look at me as a man and believe change can happen,” he said. “I don’t believe an apology will fix my wrong. I am prepared [to] accept my consequences. I am asking for a little mercy from the court concerning my sentence you will hand down.”
He lastly said he is “truly sorry” for violating Ohtani’s trust in him.
Defense, government make case for sentence
Mizuhara’s attorney asked the judge to impose an 18-month sentence, arguing in a memorandum that the interpreter was devoted to his work for Ohtani but suffers from a “longstanding gambling addiction, which was uniquely exacerbated by his grueling work and exposure to high-stakes bookmakers in the world of professional athletes.”
Mizuhara “made a terrible mistake as a result of his serious gambling addiction, an anomaly in an otherwise law-abiding life in which he was dedicated to his career as an interpreter for Mr. Ohtani and other baseball players,” his attorney, Michael Freedman, wrote.
The defense attorney also said Mizuhara’s reputation here and in Japan has been “irretrievably stained” and that he “will continue to suffer as a result of harm to his reputation and career in the global press and through certain deportation.”
Prosecutors, meanwhile, asked the court to impose a prison sentence of 57 months while disputing what they called “unsupported claims” by the defense on the extent of Mizuhara’s gambling problem and the financial problems he had said led him to Bowyer’s illegal sports betting business.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Mitchell wrote in a response to the defense’s sentencing filings that the government could find no proof of a long-standing gambling addiction, and that Mizuhara did not have “such a ‘tremendous debt’ that it forced him to steal millions of dollars from Mr. Ohtani, as he claims.”
Mitchell also questioned whether Mizuhara is “truly remorseful or whether they are just sorry they were caught” and highlighted portions of Mizuhara’s letter to the judge, in which he detailed his offseason duties for Ohtani.
“The government does not question defendant’s work ethic, but only his characterization of the work and his true intention,” Mitchell wrote. “Instead of using this opportunity to apologize and show true remorse, he has used it, in a public filing, to complain about his work and Mr. Ohtani.”
In addition to the prison sentence, the government asked for three years of supervised release, restitution of $16,975,010 to Ohtani and $1,149,400 to the IRS.
Sentencing comes nearly year after firing
Mizuhara worked with the Angels as Ohtani’s interpreter and then in the same capacity with the Dodgers, until the team fired him nearly a year ago, in March 2024, after the gambling controversy surfaced.
Ohtani addressed the scandal at the time during a press briefing, saying in a prepared statement through an interpreter, “I am very saddened and shocked that someone who I trusted has done this.”
Mizuhara pleaded guilty to the federal charges in June 2024.
According to the plea agreement, from November 2021 to March 2024, Mizuhara transferred nearly $17 million from the account to associates of the bookmaker in more than 40 wires without Ohtani’s permission.
Ohtani signed a 10-year, $700 million contract with the Dodgers prior to last year, the richest deal in sports history.
Bowyer pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges for running an illegal gambling business that took unlawful sports bets from hundreds of customers, including Mizuhara, the Department of Justice said. He is scheduled to be sentenced in April.
Mizuhara also admitted in the plea agreement to falsely claiming that his total taxable income for 2022 was $136,865 when, in fact, he failed to report an additional $4.1 million in income.
“The source of the unreported income was from his scheme to defraud the bank,” the DOJ said, noting that he owes approximately $1,149,400 in additional taxes for the tax year 2022, plus additional interest and penalties.
His sentencing has been postponed several times after the defense asked for more time to prepare and for a forensic psychologist to complete a report about Mizuhara’s gambling.
