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GREGORY WINGS ALSO KNOWN AS BLAMEITONG

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:00:27 GMT

How He Overcame Adversity and Built a Successful LifeIn a remarkable journey of redemption, Gregory Wings, also known as BlameitonG, has defied the odds by turning his life around after serving 8 years in federal prison.In 2007 at just 22 years old, Mr. Wings was sentenced to 122 months in prison and ordered to pay $8.5 million in restitution, a sentence that seemed insurmountable at the time. The federal government seized $19.5 million from Mr. Wings, an astonishing amount that had been accumulated through his successful real estate business. The young entrepreneur had just sold his Real Estate Brokerage franchises for $21 million in 2006, while co-owning two nightclubs in Atlanta GA, and co-owning a succesful underground documentary called Crack Heads Gone Wild, which had further established his reputation as a thriving young businessman.BlameitonG’s’ fortunes took a sharp turn when he found himself entangled in legal troubles. He was the youngest among his co-defendants, with all...

Opinion: American education and the great White lies

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:00:27 GMT

Recent battles over how to teach history in American schools have focused on views of America’s domestic racism, but that’s only one piece of the problem of how we view history. Our pre-college curriculums and popular histories are filled with stories of great White men who single-handedly changed the world. This heroification, however, is often as much a made-up history as the stories of Marvel heroes in the movies. Many of these supposed ground-breakers were in fact preceded by generations of people including persons from other cultures and nations.We’re taught that one man, James Watt, an 18th-century Scot, is responsible for steam power — but steam power was being used 2,000 years earlier in Egypt. American Thomas Edison “invented” the light bulb a century after it was in development by inventors such as Alexander Lodygin from Tambov Governorate of the Russian Empire, Italian Alessandro Cruto and the African-American inventor Lewis Howard Latimer, whose filament patents al...

Walters: California bills would encourage government secrecy

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:00:27 GMT

Bill McEwen, a columnist for San Joaquin Valley news site GV Wire, posed several of what he considered to be routine factual questions to the state Department of Public Health last week about a mysterious laboratory discovered in the small town of Reedley.The laboratory, in an abandoned warehouse, contained mice, biological fluids and samples of dreaded diseases including HIV, malaria and COVID-19. Federal and state investigators are delving into the situation, which surfaced when a city building code inspector noticed a hose snaking out of a wall in the warehouse.McEwen wanted to know how the department oversees laboratories, how often they are inspected and how illegal labs get discovered. But he got nowhere. Department officials refused to answer even the most basic operational questions and told McEwen to search their website to find answers.“Administration of @GavinNewsom has zero commitment to transparency,” McEwen tweeted in frustration.It was an example of what reporters and...

Man gets life in prison for killing friend during ocean trip off California coast

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:00:27 GMT

A Fountain Valley man who shot a friend over a drug debt during a late-night boat trip and left him to die in the ocean waters off of Dana Point was sentenced Monday, Aug. 7, to life in federal prison.Hoang “Wayne” Xuan Le and co-defendant Sheila Ritze conspired to lure Tri “James” Minh Dao — Le’s friend and drug-trafficking partner — to his death with promises of a lobster fishing trip on Oct. 14, 2019.A fisherman discovered Dao’s body two days later, floating in the ocean water off of Oceanside. It became the rare murder case to be tried in federal court under maritime law.Le was convicted in 2021 with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and use of a firearm during the killing, while Ritze was convicted in a separate trial of second-degree murder.Dao’s mother, in a written statement filed with the court, said Le showed no remorse for the killing.“You were my son’s friend,” the mother wrote to Le. “You often spent time together with my son’s two young daughters. They c...

After 275 days, Mammoth Mountain’s snowy slopes finally closed

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:00:27 GMT

It was a snow season for the books – one that at times buried the mountain resort, but also created a rare “second season” that allowed slopes to stay open through the summer.Now, after 275 days of snow play, the lifts have finally come to a halt. Mammoth Mountain shut down snow operations on Sunday, Aug. 6, ending an extremely long season for the popular California mountain resort.The summer snow season wrapped up on Aug. 6, the second longest snow season in Mammoth Mountain’s history. Record snowfall make this year one for the books. (Photo by Laylan Connelly, Orange County Register/SCNG) Only three times have winter operations stayed open into August, including in 2017. This season marked the second longest in Mammoth’s history. The latest the resort has ever stayed open was nearly 30 years ago, in 1995, when it closed on Aug. 13.“I think the biggest thing was the sheer amount of snow that fell in Mammoth last year,” said resort spokesperson Tim LeRoy. “When you’re setting a...

6-year-old girl hurt after drunk father hits several cars and ambulance, police say

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:00:27 GMT

A driver was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and child endangerment after police said he hit several vehicles, including an ambulance, ran a red light and crashed through a wall in Covina on Friday, Aug. 4.The man’s 6-year-old daughter, and a woman from one of the cars that was struck, were injured and hospitalized, according to Sgt. Derek Gonzales. There were other people injured but did not end up in a hospital, he said. The suspect wasn’t hurt.The crashes happened around 11:30 a.m.A Nissan Armada, driven by the suspect, struck a vehicle at Wingate Street and Grand Avenue, a second car at Banna Avenue and Cypress Street and a third vehicle at Cypress Street and Dodsworth Avenue, Gonzales said.Related ArticlesCrime and Public Safety | ‘The absolute best’ – firefighters who died in California helicopter collision remembered Crime and Public Safety | Two more men go missing in the Kern River Crime and Public Safety | Fat...

Why are women more concerned about climate change than men?

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:00:27 GMT

When a team of students from Pasadena’s Polytechnic School set out to drive from Texas to Palmdale in a solar-powered car they’d built, student/driver Julian Harrison said a passion for racing cars lured him to participate. For Kai Herman, he said it was an interest in mechanical engineering.But team captain Aria Wang? She cited a desire to help protect the planet.“My future goal is probably pursuing clean alternative energy sources,” said the 17-year-old climate enthusiast, who’s headed to Yale University this fall.It’s just one anecdote. But a growing body of research shows females, overall, are more concerned about the effects of climate change than are males. They’re also more willing to take personal action, and to support public policies, to fight it.In a Public Policy Institute of California poll released last month, some 86% of women surveyed said addressing global climate change is a top concern or one of several top concerns, while just over three-quarters of men felt the ...

‘The absolute best’ – firefighters who died in California helicopter collision remembered

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:00:27 GMT

As federal investigators on Monday, Aug. 7, tried to learn why two helicopters collided over a brush fire in Cabazon, the two Cal Fire firefighters who perished Sunday, along with their pilot, were remembered as mentors and friends.Riverside County Assistant Chief Josh Bischof, 46, and Capt. Tim Rodriguez, 44, were aboard the Bell 407 helicopter along with a contract pilot, Tony Sousa, 55, above the Broadway fire about 6:45 p.m. when it collided with a Sikorsky S-64 helicopter, better known as a “Skycrane,” which had two people aboard.The Bell crew, in a spotter helicopter, was guiding other helicopters at the scene. The much larger Skycrane, which drops water or retardant, landed safely. Both helicopters were under contract to work for Cal Fire and were housed at Hemet-Ryan Air Attack Base.Investigators walk around rotor blades from one of the crashed helicopters on a burned hillside in Cabazon on August 7, 2023. Three people were killed when their helicopter crashed into a hillsid...

Why the terrain damaged by the York fire might take centuries to regrow

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:00:27 GMT

Scorched desertThe York fire in the Mojave Desert is small by California standards but may damage sensitive lands for hundreds of years.The York fire, which erupted Aug. 4, is California’s largest wildfire this year. As of early Friday, it had burned through more than 130 square miles, fire officials said.The 400 or so firefighters battling the blaze have had to balance their efforts with concerns about disrupting the fragile ecosystem in California’s Mojave National Preserve.Crews used a light hand on the land, clearing fire lines without bulldozers in order to reduce the impact in the ecologically sensitive region, which is home to some 200 rare plant species.The blaze ignited near the remote Caruthers Canyon area of the vast wildland preserve, crossed the state line into Nevada on Sunday and sent smoke farther east into the Las Vegas Valley.When there are ecological and cultural sensitivities at stake, firefighters negotiate with federal officials to determine what equipment can ...

One LA firefighter made $510,301 … in overtime; who else brought in big extra pay?

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:00:27 GMT

The Los Angeles city fire captain had regular pay of $169,489 last year, modest as far as these things go.But he made more than three times that in overtime — $510,301 — raking in total wages of $699,478 and winning the crown for “Most Prolific Overtime Earner Among California’s 327,000+ City Employees, 2022,” according to data from the state controller.The runner-up was another L.A. city fire captain, with regular pay of  $160,892 and a stunning $409,724 in overtime. That’s total wages of $583,585. And neither total includes the $50,000-plus each that the city pays for their health and retirement benefits.For related news, see: Garcetti OKs OT funds as LA scrambles to maintain police/fire staffing levels amid COVID surgeNot so far behind, a Corona fire captain was the most prolific overtime earner among Riverside County’s cities, exceeding $300,000. That was more than double his regular salary.In Orange County, the top overtime earner was a Fullerton Fire Department battalion chief...